Dr J Roger Hite, SPE, and Principal, Business Fundamentals Group

This article was published in the March 2004 issue of the Journal of Petroleum Technology. It was prepared to emphasize the importance of Digital Energy in our industry and to focus attention on the April 7, 2004, Digital Energy Conference. This Conference is hosted by the Digital Energy Study Group of the SPE Gulf Coast Section.

If you ask the man (or woman) on the street to name a high-tech industry, the responses will likely include space exploration, the computer industry, nanotechnology, and biomedicine. But will anyone even mention the oil industry? They certainly should. In fact, our business was an early user of the Cray supercomputer, and computer industry leaders like Microsoft, IBM, SGI, HP, and Intel have developed close relationships with our industry so they can design their new applications and machines to handle the next generation of our geophysical, visualization, and simulator requirements.

Things are changing very rapidly in the sector where the petroleum technology and computer technology spheres intersect. As computer performance and speed increase, we are able to do things that were considered impossible a mere decade ago. But this rapid growth in automation and number-crunching power has not been without the accompanying growing pains. Implementing huge Enterprise Resource Programs like SAP, e-commerce initiatives, Sarbanes-Oxley reporting requirements, and specifying standards for data interchange have left or will leave many workers in our business overwhelmed and confused. E-business and monkey business are occasionally considered synonymous, particularly by those in the field who are used to doing things a certain way. And considering the demographics of SPE members, it is becoming critical that we “teach old dogs new tricks.”

Real-Time Optimization
One of the hottest topics in oilfield technology is using real-time data to optimize drilling and production operations. The process starts with monitoring, either downhole or at the surface, and continues by transmitting data to a repository by Web or satellite. Then engineers and geoscientists analyze the data and make timely decisions, sending instructions back to the field. Our industry has achieved notable progress in this arena to date, especially with advances in real-time formation evaluation while drilling in the well-placement arena and with instrumented downhole valves for intelligent completions on the production side.

Knowledge Management
Service companies have successfully implemented technology as a key part of their knowledge-management programs to improve the quality and speed of their services. For example, Schlumberger's InTouch program has saved the company more than U.S. $200 million (just one year's results). Major operators, too, have benefited from capturing best practices using digital technology.

Collaboration Tools
Collaboration and visualization tools are being used to increase understanding and speed decision making. Implementers of “Collaborative Well Planning” practices, which bring together disparate experts with state-of-the-art computer tools and applications, have found that their well-planning cycle times have been drastically reduced. And operational results show that the resultant plans are of better quality than previous efforts.

For a global industry with geographically distributed asset teams, digital tools for collaboration are also the key to eliminating the dreaded phone calls in the middle of the night. Webex, NetMeeting, and Groove.net are used by several companies in the Houston area to connect team members. Halliburton's Web-based Communities of Practice portals have resolved issues in the field in mere days rather than weeks or months.

Lessons Learned
Technology is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it doesn't work. And sometimes the technology is excellent, but the change-management initiative is the weak link. These experiences must be shared so they will not be repeated and so that valuable lessons can be learned. Companies need to encourage the “bold try” and refrain from penalizing such learning experiences or sweeping them under the rug. Presenting an SPE paper about a failure is probably more valuable to the industry than presenting yet another success story, but if you search our libraries, you will find that seldom happens.

SPE's Role
To be relevant to today's petroleum engineers, SPE must continue to play a crucial role in educating members about advances in information technology. Sessions on Knowledge Management, Oilfield Computer Directions, and Real-Time Optimization are already part of SPE's Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition as well as the Offshore Technology Conference. Perhaps additional Forum Series, Distinguished Lecturers, and Applied Technology Workshops on IT topics are in order.

The SPE Gulf Coast Section has formed a study group, chaired by Jeff Gallagher of Spherion, to keep its 11,000 members apprised of advancements in information technology. Although it was originally called the E-Business Study Group, it was found that the area of interest was truly of a much larger scope so the name was changed to the Digital Energy Study Group. This group has held a 1-day conference in Houston the past 3 years. This year's conference on April 7, chaired by Dean Kaminski of Halliburton, will have sessions on Knowledge Management, the Real-Time Oil Field, Improving Collaboration, and Lessons Learned. The last will include a series of case histories-both successes and failures. The Gulf Coast Section is working with SPE International to expand this conference, possibly making it international in scope and location in the next few years.

Meanwhile, we all need to proactively keep ourselves up to date with the latest in digital energy technology by reading articles, attending meetings, taking seminars, participating in SPE's Technical Interest Groups (TIGs), and making friends with the resident geek or computer wizard. By learning how to implement the best information technologies correctly so they have a positive effect on the bottom line, we petroleum engineers can position our companies to be successful in the future.